Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [49]
She was astounded. She said, ‘Don’t be silly.’
He took hold of her arm and squeezed it tightly. ‘Do as you’re told.’
She sat down on the bed and began to unzip the side of her dress. She was showing all her teeth and grinning in the near darkness. She felt ridiculous. It would have been better if he’d threatened her with a gun or smashed her across the face instead of pinching her arm in that spiteful fashion.
‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘I don’t want you with nothing on. Only take your stockings off.’
She thought he was very old-fashioned. She hadn’t worn stockings for years. Swivelling round on the bed so that her back was to him, she began to wriggle out of her tights. She hoped her feet didn’t smell. Just taking her shoes off made her feel suddenly very tired and shaky. It was the cleaning she’d done in the morning – or was it yesterday? Not to mention the shopping, the cooking, rowing with the children. All that energy, all that locomotion, hour after hour after hour—
‘Lie down,’ he ordered.
She lay flat and hoped he wouldn’t strangle her. It didn’t seem very likely, not with everybody sitting downstairs, talking and making jokes. She distinctly heard the trill of Alma’s laughter. If he put his hands round her throat, once she was sure he really meant to harm her, she would jab him in the crotch with her knee. She couldn’t do it immediately because his hands weren’t anywhere near her neck and she had to give him the benefit of the doubt. She wasn’t sure whether you could kill somebody by banging them there. She would rather die than act too hastily.
‘Do you want to feel my chest?’ she said. She was showing him she was uninhibited and matter of fact about the whole business. He needn’t worry that she would throw hysterics or start imagining that he was madly in love with her. She was a woman of the world.
‘Keep quiet,’ he said. ‘I can’t abide tits.’
The neck of his woolly jumper smelled of aftershave; he was resting the point of his chin on her forehead. She moved, and for an instant his mouth brushed hers. He jerked his head away. He didn’t touch her at all; he just slipped inside.
She kept thinking of Lawrence of Arabia feeling ashamed at being done so easily. It hadn’t made it very clear in the film what had happened to him. He merely came out of the man’s tent looking a bit po-faced and walked off into the desert in a funny stiff way as if he’d been on a horse all his life. She wouldn’t have known what it meant except somebody told her the following day. But it was understandable really, him being excited and ready for it. It wasn’t anything to do with wanting it – the rudeness of the whole thing accomplished the necessary lubrication. The divan was awfully uncomfortable. When Harry had tugged the sheet from the bed he’d messed up the blankets. There was something digging into her back and she wriggled.
‘Stop that,’ said Ginger.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
She supposed she was being raped. One huge tear gathered in her left eye and rolled down her cheek. She wasn’t feeling hurt or humiliated – he didn’t do anything dirty or unusual. He wasn’t stubbing cigarettes out on her despised breasts or swinging from the chandelier, member pointed like a dagger. It was unreal, of no account. That’s why she cried – though she wondered why it was only in one eye. It would be better not to mention any of this to a soul, not even under torture. Unless she had bruises to show for it or a nervous breakdown, people would have doubts. It was like when small children were molested on the way back from sweetie shops. However sympathetic one felt towards the distraught parents, there were always those reservations. Why was the child out at that time of night? What was she doing on her own? It was dreadful, but blame was apportioned.
Ginger was clutching her head and muttering one word over and over. She couldn’t be sure, because his fingers were stuffed in her ears, but it sounded like steak, steak, steak. It was funny the way persons behaved at certain times. During the war, when bombs were dropping or ships were going down,